Of the 840 million e-mails scanned by MessageLabs last month, 67.6% were designated as spam, or unsolicited commercial e-mail. Within this figure were significant regional variations and spam 'hot spots', said the security firm.
Currently, e-mail traffic sent to the US, UK, Germany, Australia and Hong Kong represents more than 97% of the global spam volumes being filtered by MessageLabs. The US was the worst hit, with 83% of total traffic identified as spam. This fell to 52% in the UK, 41% in Germany, 32% in Australia and 30% in the Netherlands, while in Hong Kong, spam represented 27% of total e-mail volume.
The figures point to a trend towards the targeting of English speaking countries, where internet and e-mail use is at its highest. According to Mark Sunner, Chief Technology Officer at MessageLabs:
"The US presents the widest market for spammers in terms of internet access and adoption of e-mail as a communications tool. While it currently has the worst global figure at 83%, it's only a matter of time until the UK falls victim to similar volumes in about six months' time, while Asia-Pacific countries will likely see the same impact in 12 months' time. When it comes to the internet, when the US sneezes, the rest of us catch a cold."
"These latest figures show spam is becoming a bigger problem worldwide, and unfortunately shows that current legislation is having little impact in curbing the upward trend," he added.
New spam laws
New regulations came into force in the UK in December, requiring businesses to gain prior consent before sending spam to individuals. But the new rules do not tackle the huge volume of unsolicited commercial e-mail sent to business addresses, nor can they deal with spam coming from overseas, particularly the US, where legislation is even less stringent.
The US Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM Act), which came into force in January, has been accused of legitimising spam, rather than reducing it.
The criticism focuses on the 'opt-out' policy adopted by the Act, which does not ban unsolicited commercial e-mail or text messages, but demands that spam sent to consumers includes a means of opting-out of the mailing list used by the particular company.
The changing nature of spam
Clearswift released its own analysis of April's spam activity, focusing on the types of spam being sent.
Financial spam is close to overtaking pharmaceutical spam as the most common form of junk e-mail, according to the April Clearswift Spam Index, which suggest that spammers have found more profitable offerings.
Pornography spam has in fact reached its lowest level since the inception of the Index in June 2003, when it accounted for 22% of all junk e-mail. It has since has been in decline, accounting for only 5% of total spam in April 2004.
Healthcare spam dropped from 57% of unsolicited mail in March back to 40% in April, with financial spam growing from 25% in March to 38% of all spam in April.
According to Alyn Hockey, Clearswift's director of research, "it appears that adult products and services are not generating sufficient returns for spammers. Instead, they are switching to more profitable models using stock tips and consumer products as a hook."